Parents’ FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions:

What does our company do?

We provide cutting-edge therapy for children with special needs such as autism, ADHD, and developmental delays. We use an advanced type of ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis) called ABA-VB (Verbal Behavior), which emphasizes the use of functional language and appropriate behaviour.

How do our therapists help your kid?

Using the advanced ABA-VB approach, we conduct 1:1 sessions customised according to the specific needs of each child. Each child is assigned to a professionally qualified therapist who conducts the sessions and monitors the child’s progress. We use the natural interest of the child, plus creative play, to create a highly motivating and fun learning environment.

What is ABA-VB?

ABA is a well-established, evidence-based teaching method that uses rewards to motivate children to learn appropriate behaviors. Our therapists break down skills into simple, easy to learn components. As the children learn these components, our therapists gradually help them to combine different components together to perform complex skills.

ABA-VB avoids the tendency of traditional ABA to train children in a robotic manner to perform tasks without understanding. Our therapists are required to ensure that the children truly understand what they have learned. For example, children must not only learn about the item being taught, they must also demonstrate how to use it and generalise its use for different situations in real life.

How is ABA-VB different from Speech Therapy / Occupational Therapy / Sensory Integration?

OT/ST/SI may overlap with ABA-VB in some aspects, but ABA-VB therapy is more comprehensive and flexible. ABA-VB covers appropriate play, academic learning, basic life skills, emotional regulation and dealing with sensory issues all in one.

In addition, ABA is the only therapy recommended by the Surgeon-General to treat autism. Research conducted on it since the 1960s continues to build on the most successful intervention for improving autistic children’s outcomes, especially in developing their cognitive and language abilities.

Our sessions are more relaxed, flexible and fun for the child to learn compared to traditional ABA.

Our typical session lasts 3 hours. It consists of teaching the child essential cognitive, speech and language, and communication skills. Our therapists would spend at least 2 hours on structured teaching to help them develop, strengthen or enhance these skills. Short breaks are given to the child at the end of each hour as a reward for doing well during the structured teaching.

We also devote 45 minutes to an hour to teach social interaction skills through facilitated free play, interactive games, cooperative play, and group activities like having snacks together.

What makes our therapists qualified?

Dr. James Partington, a world-renowned Doctoral level Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA- D), who has over 40 years of experience working with children with autism, not only trains our therapists, but also supervises our programmes. He has also taught undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral level courses in psychology and behavioral disciplines at educational facilities across North America and Canada.

Our therapists mainly come from a psychology and pedagogy background. They have received extensive training from Dr. Partington and our program supervisors. We invest very heavily in staff development and training to make sure that our therapists always provide the best quality service in Asia.

What makes us better than other therapy centres?

• Firstly, we are the most awarded centre in Asia.

• We are also the only certified ABA-VB provider, with ABA-VB being a more advanced type of ABA.

• In addition, we invest the most amount of money, time and effort in training our staff to become and remain the best in the industry.

• More importantly, we possess in-depth understanding and - collectively, more experience and expertise in the treatment of autism than any other centre in Asia.

• Last but not least, our passion and commitment upholds and ensures the utmost quality and effectiveness of our programmes.

Some words of caution, however. Caring alone is not enough.

• Some centres adopt a "we care" attitude towards children.

• However, caring alone is not going to help these children improve from their condition

• It takes a tremendous amount of training, experience and expertise to make a significant and meaningful difference in the lives of these children.